Before & After: 5 Gardens by Paxton Gate

San Franciscans know Paxton Gate as one of the city's best garden stores, but you may not know that they also do landscape design. Their portfolio is full of inspiring before and after photos, including gorgeous gardens that started out as leveled dirt lots, overgrown backyards, and scraggly hillsides. If you're the owner of a weedy lot or an unkempt patio, these photos might just be the kick-start you need to plan an outdoor renovation project.

Sean Quigley is the head of Paxton Gate's design-build division. In addition to residential gardens, his team does restaurants, retail spaces, and even some interior design.

If you've visited Paxton Gate's Mission shop, you know that their aesthetic mixes taxidermy with Victorian-style curiosities and strange plants. Their landscape design style is more mainstream, although they build a little bit of wildness into all their projects, and they tend to create gardens that look better as they mature.

To see the full scope of their portfolio, which includes a few photos of gardens over the years, click here.